Time Pieces: Friends of the Orphan Signs

Time Pieces: Friend of the Orphan Signs

Friends of the Orphan Signs, an exhibition in the upstairs gallery organized by artist/curator Ellen Babcock, showcases historic Albuquerque road signs alongside artwork created in response to them, focusing on a dialogue between historic content and contemporary art practices. Friends of the Orphan Signs is a collaborative, public art initiative directed by Babcock, which utilizes abandoned road signs as sites for community generated public art. Once glowing with the neon life-blood of the Mother Road, road signs along Central Avenue have become skeletal remnants of their former selves. In a series of interventions both actual and proposed, Friends of the Orphan Signs, in collaboration with the city of Albuquerque Public Art Program, infuses these sites with the creative voices of our community. Featured projects in the exhibition present histories of signage in Albuquerque as a context to imagine the future of light, color, image and text along Central Avenue. Artists and contributing curators include Pete Yahnke Railand, Lindsey Fromm, Jessamyn Lovell, Aline Hunziker and Bethany Delahunt.

516 ARTS is a nonprofit contemporary art museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico